UCLPartners has been designated an Academic Health Science Network (AHSN).
UCLPartners is one of 15 networks announced today by NHS England. AHSNs are intended to promote innovation in the NHS and create wealth for the economy. Their core functions include informatics, service improvement, procurement and engaging the NHS with research.
It is anticipated AHSNs will improve patient outcomes as well as contributing to economic growth by enabling academics, healthcare professionals and industry to work together to speed up delivery of cutting edge medical research into routine NHS practice. The aim is to stimulate the UK economy with inventors and industry joining forces to develop new medical technologies for patient benefit.
UCLPartners, which was established in 2009 as an Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC), has created an environment for clinicians and academics working in some of the UK’s leading hospitals and universities to collaborate to deliver world class standards of clinical and academic outcomes. AHSC partners included St Bartholomew’s, Great Ormond Street, Moorfields, Queen Mary University of London, The Royal Free London, UCL and University College London Hospitals.
Becoming an AHSN will see UCLPartners serve a large and diverse population – over six million people in north east and north central London, south and west Hertfordshire, south Bedfordshire and south west and mid Essex – making it the largest AHSN in the country.
Sir Cyril Chantler, UCLPartners Chairman said: “As an AHSN, UCLPartners has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform lives and reduce the well-known variation in life expectancy across the population we serve. Our hospitals and universities are working in partnership across traditional boundaries with shared values to support a relentless drive for improving patient outcomes, teaching and research.”
Professor David Fish, Managing Director of UCLPartners said: “We have some of the country’s leading experts within our general practices, hospitals, community health providers and universities. Together we can achieve greater benefits than are possible when organisations or individuals work in isolation. Our ambition is to improve patient care and make better use of innovation and research to drive economic benefits for the population we serve.”
UCLPartners’ work includes an initiative to reduce cardiac arrests amongst patients in hospital. A network of clinicians from 15 hospitals is sharing best practice in how to identify early signs of deterioration amongst patients in hospital. This initiative has halved the number of cardiac arrests on wards in some hospitals.
It is also working with industry to deliver cutting edge medical research to patients across its population. For instance, led by Professor James Hampton-Till, Director of Research at Anglia Ruskin University's Postgraduate Medical Institute, UCLPartners is driving the delivery of a complex international phase III drug trial for patients with acute heart failure in parts of London, Essex and Hertfordshire. This is a priority study for Novartis, which will run across eight acute hospitals. Professor Hampton-Till said: “Our partnership draws together specialist expertise with detailed local knowledge and, by keeping the patient experience at the heart of what we do, can deliver high performing and scientifically important clinical trials."
UCLPartners is now building on its achievement to roll out programmes in areas that account for over 80% of premature mortality and current healthcare spend: cancer, cardiovascular, mental health, supporting patients with multiple health issues and addressing the needs of people as they progress through life from birth to childhood and adolescence.
